Student government at Penn usually tries to be just that: representation for students.
But, last month, the Undergraduate Assembly passed a proposal aimed at another group on campus, a group it believes faces "discrimination, harassment and intimidation" - campus security guards.
The Workers' Rights Proposal - spearheaded by UA member and College sophomore Hayling Price - urges AlliedBarton Security Services, which is the guards' actual employer, to allow its employees to engage in activity that could result in the formation of a union.
The proposal also urges the University and AlliedBarton to take steps to ensure that the working conditions of the guards are improved.
Guards' unionization efforts surfaced last year when five AlliedBarton employees presented University President Amy Gutmann with a petition asking Penn to support their effort to unionize.
The guards asserted that AlliedBarton was stifling their legal right to a union.
Penn refused to take a stance last spring, however, because it does not directly employ the security guards.
But the UA wants Penn to get involved.
Price's proposal was slated to be unveiled last spring, but it was tabled after he discovered that union negotiations were ongoing between AlliedBarton and its employees. Price felt it would have been "counteractive to the negotiations" if the proposal was publicized then.
The negotiations ended Sept. 1, and no resolution was reached. Price, therefore, decided to go forward with his proposal.
The main complaints of the guards range from "low wages, terrible health care [and] inadequate training" to charges of nepotism and arbitrariness among supervisors, guards say.
Several AlliedBarton guards - who spoke on the condition of anonymity because their contract forbids them from speaking to the media - seemed pleased with Price's proposal.
"I think the influence of the students is good," one guard said. "They are the clients of AlliedBarton. . If students say something, [AlliedBarton] will listen."
One guard was willing to speak on the record, however. George Darrah, a security guard who has worked at Penn for 10 years, said he believes that the proposal is only a first step to his ultimate goal - unionization.
"I don't want to leave these young people without a union," Darrah said, referring to his co-workers.
He added that, without a union contract, any benefits AlliedBarton provides could be taken away at any time. The only way to ensure permanent change, he said, is with a union contract.
AlliedBarton, however, sees the situation very differently.
"We object . to the proposal's implication that there are current labor-rights violations concerning AlliedBarton employees," company spokesman Larry Rubin said.
University administrators still decline to meet face to face with security guards to hear their grievances, but they are beginning to meet with AlliedBarton supervisors and look into whether the security guards are treated fairly.
In an e-mail, Executive Vice President Craig Carnaroli said that "Penn has a responsibility to ensure that the contract is being fulfilled and the employees . are being treated appropriately and fairly."
And it seems that the UA proposal has reignited University interest in the issue.
The Workers' Rights Proposal was at the forefront of a meeting held last Monday between University administrators, student leaders and AlliedBarton supervisors.
